Ohio AG: Danny Lee Hill has no valid claim to seek new trial

The Ohio Attorney General’s office says the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals should deny a request for hiring attorneys to argue that Warren murderer Danny Lee Hill should get a new trial for the 1985 torture and mutilation killing of 12-year-old Raymond Fife.

The grounds for the request relate to evidence presented at Hill’s trial as to whether bite marks on Fife’s genitals were made by Hill.

The March 31 request by Hill’s attorneys was filed under seal, meaning the public cannot see it, but the April 10 response from the Ohio Attorney General’s office is accessible to the public.

It argues that no valid claim relating to bite-mark evidence would give the circuit court reason to allow lawyers to be hired to seek a new trial.

The attorney general’s office says any suggestion by Hill’s attorneys that it has any newly discovered evidence relating to bite marks is a “gross distortion of the role the bite-mark evidence played at his trial.”

First, Fife died of heart and lung failure as a result of the injuries he suffered at the hands of Hill and Timothy Combs, including asphyxiation and multiple trauma, the filing says.

Any new bite-mark evidence “would not absolve [Hill] of murder,” the filing says, noting the other types of lethal trauma the boy suffered.

The attorney general’s office cites an Ohio Supreme Court summary of the trial that says a state-hired bite expert testified that Hill is the person whose bite marks were on Fife’s body.

It recounts that a defense-hired bite expert testified that it was inconclusive whether Hill’s teeth caused the bite marks.

“What I’m saying is either Hill or Combs, or both, could have left some of the marks,” said Dr. Lowell Levine. But he added that at least one bite mark was “most likely” left by Hill.

Allowing testimony by a new expert regarding bite marks 28 years after Hill’s initial trial in Trumbull County would be “nothing more than a new opinion on an old topic, which does not amount to ‘newly discovered evidence,’” the attorney general’s filing says.

Ohio law allows a new trial for “consideration only of facts which were in existence at the time of trial, not opinions, which can be formulated at any time,” the filing says.

Hill, 47, was sentenced to death in 1986 after a trial in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court. Combs is serving a life sentence and was not eligible for the death penalty because he was a juvenile at the time of the crime.

Comments

ENOUGH of Danny Lee Hill playing the system. It's time he paid his debt to society. He should have been put to death years ago. There's no reason to wait any longer. Execute him as soon as possible. He has no right to continue to live. He forfeited that right when he killed Raymond Fife.

Hill should have been put down 30 years ago. The lawyers who are carrying out their own political agendas by delaying Hill's execution, over and over, should be punished for Contempt of Court. They're purposefully not carrying out the court's decision. There is no reason to delay Hill's termination any further. Do it now!!

PUT THIS MAN TO DEATH......NO MORE EXCUSES!!! That child died and his mother has mourned his death in so many ways. Let the devil deal with him. His hour glass just ran out of sand. Trust me he will not be missed. He has no purpose in life or society. Life in prision cannot be a day at the beach. JUST SET A DATE AND TIME AND GET IT OVER WITH.....THEN DUMP HIM IN THE SEA.

When they found the 14 year old boy naked on the Warren bike trail the other day, my thoughts immediately went to Raymond Fife and the horrific death he suffered. I can't fathom the anguish Miriam Fife has had to live with every time something like this comes up. Now, she has to be vividly reminded of this tragedy one more time by some POS defense attorney raising ridiculous and inconsequential points just to keep the needle from Danny Lee Hill's arm. Everyone is entitled to be defended in a courtroom by a competent attorney when prosecuted by the state, but it needs to end there.

I have ammunition and weapons I would be willing to donate to end this POS's breathing our air. This freak has spent enough tax payer money, ate enough tax payer bought food, and wasted enough of the courts time. It's time to put this freak down like the animal he is. He claims to be incompetent, yet he keeps coming up with this crap to save his own butt. PUT HIM DOWN.

I wonder if the defense attorney reminded the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals that Danny Lee hill also stuck a broom handle into Fife's rectum, urinated on the innocent young boy and set him on fire while POSSIBLY being one of the two perpetrators that bit Fife on the genitals? How can that not turn the stomach of anyone? Danny Lee Hill is an animal and should be destroyed. And, I am no proponent of the death penalty for humans.

how many good people have died since this piece of $hit was sentenced to death. he should have been executed years ago. I pray that mrs. fife sees the day this ba$tard is put to death. no child should have to endure the nightmare this slime did to him!!!

If this was Texas this piece of crap would of been dead years ago, Ohio is pussy footing around! Gov Kasic get involved and get this low life off the face of this earth! We need someone like sheriff Joe Arapio of Phoenix for President to clean up this screwed up legal system and to shutdown the border!